Leslie Lafoy (29 page)

“I didn’t ask him to send me all this stuff.”

“But he did and you will not only graciously deal with every piece of it, but convey to him, personally, that you want the tide of apology stopped.”

Apology? This wasn’t an apology; it was a full-scale bribery campaign. “I don’t want to see him.”

Carrie arched a brow and gave her The Look. “Then write him a letter and arrange for every single one of the gifts to be returned. Before lunch today. I’m off to call on Lady Barnes and coo over her new baby. I expect to find this room back to its normal appearance when I return.”

Carrie waited. No doubt for formal and meek acquiescence. Fiona folded her arms across her midriff. “Why are you angry with me?”

“I’m not angry, Fiona,” her sister replied. “I’m disappointed.”

Disappointed?
“At what?”

Carrie studied the floor for a moment, then lifted her gaze to give her a small but patient smile. “No relationship ever runs smoothly all the time. There are ups and there are downs.”

“And,” Fiona countered, “just as there are beginnings, there are ends, too.”

“True. And the measure of one’s maturity and character lies in how one handles life’s inevitable less-than-happy moments. You’ve been hiding at Simone’s for the last three days, simmering in your anger, letting Ian wallow alone in his misery, and expecting everyone else in your world to manage the unpleasant consequences and obligations you don’t want to deal with. It’s time to grow up, Fiona.”

Ian wasn’t miserable. And she hadn’t expected anyone to deal with all this flotsam because she hadn’t known it was here. The only thing she’d asked of anyone was that Carrie return the ring to Ian if he happened to call, and that her animals be fed and watered.

“Ogre sister that I am,” Carrie went on, “I expect you to be done with the process by noon today so that I can advise my guests in advance of tomorrow night’s ball that the engagement has been called off.”

“You haven’t done that yet?” Fiona asked, stunned.

“I’ve been waiting to see if you would change your mind. The only thing worse than calling off an engagement at the last moment is announcing, at an even later moment, that it’s back on again.”

Fiona gestured toward the mountain of gifts. “You thought all of this would make a difference?”

“I thought that perhaps you might come to your senses and realize that you love Ian.”

“Ha!”

Carrie turned and walked away, saying, “I’m off to see Lady Barnes.”

“Love Ian,” Fiona muttered, glaring at the decorated boxes and vases of flowers. She stepped into the overflowing parlor, looking for any sign of a note. The first one she found was tucked amongst the fern fronds in a large vase of red roses sitting on the sideboard. “Let’s see,” she muttered, yanking it out, “if he’s once—just once!—mentioned the word
love
.”

She opened it to find an elegant and obviously feminine script announcing—with the distinct sound of a trumpet fanfare in the distance—that the flowers were from His Grace, Dr. Ian Cabott, the Duke of Dunsford.

“She was obviously impressed,” Fiona groused, wadding up the note and tossing it down. Looking around, she saw another note. This one accompanied a smallish box with a big white bow.

I’d like seeeee you in thi … I.
Fiona arched a brow and read it again. His pen had shaken, he’d left out words, and he’d trailed off at the end, not even bothering to finish the thought. And
I
? What, writing out his full name had been too much for him to do? Well, probably, she allowed, her teeth clenched. He’d clearly been three sheets to the wind when he’d picked up the pen.

She tossed the note down and considered the box, tempted to open it just to see what a drunkard considered an appropriate wooing gift. Given how small the box was … Gloves and scarf. Or maybe a shawl. She had lots of those already. She sighed and wandered on through the maze of male stupidity.

*   *   *

The clock was chiming the half hour when Fiona dropped down onto the settee and tossed the collection of notes on the side table. Seven were fanfare announcements from florists. Four were from perfumers who expressed His Grace’s hope that she found their wares to her liking. The jewelers hadn’t written notes; they’d just included their finely, tastefully engraved cards. There was only the one drunken note from Ian himself. The one where he’d mentioned the word “like.” Hardly the heartfelt declaration of adoration she’d been hoping to find.

And the truth was, she had to admit, blinking back yet another wave of tears, she had wanted very much to find a word or two on which to hang her fragile hope. Her fading hope. And to think that only a few weeks ago she’d been hoping that Ian would withdraw his marriage proposal and leave her alone to enjoy her comfortably patterned life. How odd that it didn’t feel quite so comfortable anymore, that it felt a bit hollow and … well, expectant. As though she were simply going through familiar motions while biding her time until something important happened.

Until Ian accepted the notion that marriage was a partnership of equals. Or until she decided that she cared enough about him to risk herself, to overlook his faults and marry him in the hope that, over time, his perceptions could be remolded. If only she thought there might be reasonable odds of succeeding at that.

He really was a remarkable man. Intelligent and handsome. Kind and compassionate and generous. He was a socially progressive thinker—at least when it came to the practice of medicine and public health. And while she didn’t have any other lovers to measure him against, she honestly couldn’t imagine that there could ever be anyone more intriguing, anyone who could make her feel freer or happier, or satisfy her more thoroughly.

If only he understood that she—

“Pardon the intrusion, Lady Fiona.”

She looked up to meet the gaze of the footman standing in the parlor doorway. “It’s all right,” she said, wearily rising and gathering up the notes. “Do you have a match?”

He cocked a brow and then intoned, “Her Grace, the Dowager Duchess Dunsford.”

He’d sent his mother to plead his case? God, why? It suggested a sense of complete desperation. Or maybe a last, final effort so that he could say he’d gone the full measure. Of course, why he’d consider it important to do that …

An older woman—maybe sixty or so, if Fiona had been pressed to guess—glided into the room. Only the slightest bit stooped at the shoulders by age, she was regal and perfectly dressed, perfectly coiffed. She came to a stop at the midpoint of the parlor and waited.

“Hello, Your Grace,” Fiona offered.

Ian’s mother sniffed and lifted her chin so that she could look down her nose. “You are supposed to curtsy at being presented to me.”

The daughter of a duke, the sister-in-law of a duke. The wife of a duke, the mother of a duke. They seemed fairly evenly anointed to her. And the idea of kowtowing on command … Fiona leaned back against the sideboard and crossed her arms over her midriff. “Is there a particular reason you’ve called this morning, Your Grace?”

She drew herself up by slow, even degrees, then pointedly slid her gaze over the contents of the room. “You appear to have a great many ardent suitors.”

“It’s all from Ian.”

“Ah, ever overly generous,” she said through a tight, obviously forced smile. “I have a great many things to do today and so I will be direct. Ian’s only true purpose in life is to be a disappointment, embarrassment, and irritant to me. I have long expected his choice of duchess to follow in the same vein as the other choices he has made and for the same reasons. I must say, however, that choosing you was a spectacular low, even for him.”

Well, if Ian had sent her to plead for him, she’d apparently thrown the script out the carriage window along the way. “The truly direct version of that, Your Grace, would be to say that you don’t approve of me.”

Her lips were thin and bloodless as she opened her reticule. “Two thousand pounds,” she said, removing a stack of banded, pristine bank notes and tossing it down on the seat of the nearest chair.

“For?” Fiona asked warily.

“Ending your overreaching relationship with my son.”

She doesn’t know. Ian didn’t send her.
Sadness weighting her heart, Fiona shook her head. “I’m not interested in your money.”

Her Grace took another stack from her reticule and tossed it atop the other one. “Three thousand.”

“I’m not for sale, Your Grace.”

“How much do you want?” the other woman asked frostily.

It really was no wonder that Ian’s view of relationships was so limited. In his world, everything could be had for the right price, and nothing had value beyond what had been paid for it or what it could be sold for. “Just out of curiosity … How many would-be duchesses have you purchased over the years?”

“I have lost count.”

Too ready, too quick to answer. Not even the slightest pause to remember. She was lying. “How many have refused your offer?” Fiona asked, oddly strengthened by the certainty that she was at least one kind of first in Ian’s experience.

“None.”

“The correct answer, Your Grace,” Fiona said kindly but firmly, “is
one
.” And, given the way the woman blinked, she was apparently a first for his mother, too.

“You can either choose to take the money or suffer the consequences.”

Her tone was the same, still icy and imperious. But the cadence of her speech was drastically different: faster, the words less separated and measured. Ian’s mother was off her stride. “And what might those consequences be?” Fiona asked, truly curious about what was the worst that could happen in Ian’s world.

“I will see that your name is dropped from the invitation list of every Society event.”

“For free?” Fiona asked before she could think better of it.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I loathe parties,” Fiona explained. “I’d be willing to pay you—handsomely—if you could arrange it so that I didn’t have to go to any more.”

“No worthy designer will ever make your gowns.”

She considered this a dire threat? “My sister designs my gowns. She always has and always will.”

“You will never wear the Dunsford family jewelry.”

Fiona had to suck in her cheeks to keep from grinning. “I’ll probably cry myself to sleep tonight over that one,” she replied, failing miserably in the effort to keep her amusement out of her voice.

“Sarcasm is most unbecoming.”

“No more so than bribery and bullying,” Fiona blithely shot back.

“You are impudent.”

Better than being impotent
, she silently retorted. The insight was swift, and despite being wholly unexpected, crystalline and certain. Fiona chewed the inside of her lip and considered the elderly woman, weighing what each of them stood to gain by honesty. In the end she decided that there wasn’t anything to be gained in keeping silent. It wasn’t as though they were ever going to be part of the same family. And maybe, just maybe, Ian’s mother would look at the world just differently enough to understand that she could be a happier person.

“I know that you have places to go, Your Grace, so I’ll be direct, as well,” she began. “I broke off my engagement to your son three days ago. All of this has arrived here since then. His attempt to apologize and convince me to change my mind.”

“Which, when the value becomes large enough to suit you, you will.”

“No, Your Grace, I won’t,” she countered softly. “All of this will be returned to him this afternoon.”

“There is no other man in the kingdom who can give you more.”

“It’s not
things
that matter, Your Grace. Money and status and pretty baubles mean nothing without respect. I don’t want to go through the rest of my days being considered a socially necessary but not particularly valuable ornament in a man’s life. It strikes me as a very sad and empty and lonely way to live.”

“As is being a spinster,” she haughtily countered.

Fiona shrugged. “At least spinsters don’t have to spend their lives with someone who dismisses their hopes and dreams, thoughts and opinions as being unimportant simply because they’re those of a female. They can be more than merely a wife, more than a person as easily and quickly replaced as any member of the household staff.”

The duchess slowly arched a white brow. “Young women today have such overly inflated expectations of marriage.”

“I think that it’s more a matter of understanding that they have worth on their own and that being happy is just as important as being married.”

Ian’s mother made a tiny
hrumph
ing sound. “And what would happen to the world if women were to choose their happiness over marriage?”

Fiona smiled. “Men will either have to pay housekeepers a
lot
more, or they’ll have to adjust their thinking as to what makes an acceptable husband and then decide whether they want to make a sincere effort to become one, or live alone.”

One corner of her mouth twitched ever so slightly. “What an intriguing notion.” Then, as though she felt guilty for having enjoyed the thought of males losing some of their kingly prerogatives, she added, “Not, of course, that there is the remotest chance of it ever coming to pass.”

“Well, to be perfectly honest, Your Grace,” Fiona replied with a tiny shrug, “I’m not the least interested in changing the way the world works for everyone. Most people are quite content to go along, to accept matters as they are and have always been. I’m simply not one of them. I want more for myself. Yes, it’s selfish. But…”

She managed a smile that she hoped didn’t look as sad as she suddenly felt. “It’s become apparent that your son is very traditional in his thinking. His life would run ever so much more smoothly if he marries a woman of like mind.”

The duchess openly considered her while nodding and quietly replying, “Yes, it would.”

Well, it would have been nice if the woman had disagreed and suggested that her son’s life would be happier if he married her. Nice, yes, and not at all surprising that she hadn’t. “Is there anything else we need to discuss, Your Grace?” Fiona asked, stepping over to the chair and picking up the banded stacks of currency.